Clearly she did not think I could do much at all, despite the fact that Tony’s leg had not fallen off yet.
We went inside. The tent had been subdivided by heavy lengths of canvas, and she guided me to the right, directly into a small room full of equipment and scrubs.
“What happened to Behrens Memorial?” I asked. Gloria and Lattimore had done their initial reports from there, and I had delivered several patients to its ER back in college.
Lattimore’s face closed off even further than I thought possible. “It was overrun,” she told me, searching through a shelf of clothing. “We ended up grabbing what we could and bugging out. Every now and then Keller sends a scout team out, but eight floors…all those revenants…”
Right. No hospital for us.
“You did a nice job on McKnight’s leg. Hope it wasn’t a fluke.”
I kept my face frozen as Lattimore selected a gray thermal shirt and shoved it at me. It had MEDIC emblazoned across the front and back in big red letters. “Put this on. I’ll get you some others in your size. You need to wear this whenever you’re out on business. Think of it as a work uniform.” She paused. “It may also help you get around checkpoints faster.”
Checkpoints? No one had said anything about checkpoints.
I slipped behind a screen to change, then re-emerged with what I hoped was my best smile. I’d worked with Dr. Samuels, Elderwood’s very own brand of mad scientist; surely I could handle whatever Lattimore threw at me.
She let out another disappointed-sounding sigh. “I guess you’ll do.”
Just keep smiling. Just keep smiling. “So do you want me to start with patients, or…?”
“A squad saw some action at the edge of the Quarantine Zone. You’ll be treating soldiers from there as they come in.”
“Quarantine Zone?”
“There’s a section where the inhabited part of the city is cut off from the part that has been overrun. The undead break through pretty frequently.”
Oh. I was getting thrown right into the thick of things. Very well.
“Here’s a kit and a clearance pass.” She shoved a blue box and a laminated card at me, not pausing to ask if I could actually do half the shit I’m sure Tony said I could.
“How are things otherwise?” I asked.
She sent me a withering look. I really was not doing too well here.
“I mean medically,” I said. “I’ve been locked up since I got here and Tony hasn’t told me shit.”
Her expression didn’t soften, but she did answer me as she rearranged the shirts she’d upset. “It’s bad. We’ve got revenants coming at us from all directions. Two recent scouting teams sent outside the walls haven’t come back, and Keller’s not inclined to send out a third. Can’t blame him. Poor kid inherited a clusterfuck from Durkee.”
I’d heard the name Durkee flung around a few times now. “What happened to him, anyway?” I asked.
“Dead. Some of those fucking zombies that broke through the Quarantine Zone caught up with him.” She shook her head. “May he rest. Beyond that, we’ve got the usual problems in a war zone…typhoid, some cholera.”
“Typhoid and cholera?” Shit, I always died of those while playing Oregon Trail.
“Sanitation system’s failing in some parts, although we’re trying to keep it going. We still get power from the dam, and Keller’s protecting the lines, but I think something’s going on at the control station itself. All our scouting parties are looking for generators now.”
I had other questions swirling around in my feverish little brain, but Lattimore’s expression pretty much forbade any more of what she clearly considered small talk. So I nodded, put on my poker face, and followed her back through the makeshift lobby and into the main tent. We passed through this quiet area swiftly, moving directly to the back, out another flap, and into a second, smaller tent.
The stench hit me immediately: the peculiar mixture of earthy and human decay, fresh blood, and oozing wounds that had become standard in any post-apocalyptic medical unit. I counted at least a dozen soldiers and two civilians in varying states of distress, all of them sporting fresh wounds.
Ah. She’d brought me to triage.
A soldier lurched off a cot and latched onto me before I could get two steps inside. “Help,” she said. “I need a tourniquet or something.”
I looked down at her left arm, or what was left of it. She didn’t need a tourniquet—she needed a new hand.
“Christ,” I muttered, gently pushing her back down. “Ah…Doctor…”
Lattimore glanced at the hand and didn’t bother hiding her grimace, which I’m sure didn’t give the patient a particularly good feeling about the situation. “Clean her up and I’ll be by in a minute,” she said.
Clean what up? I stared down at the mangled flesh and bits of bone sticking out. Could this even be repaired? Even if I could staunch the bleeding and set things mostly right, would she be able to use the hand at all?